ST. LOUIS -- Max Kranick admits that the time away from the game, in retrospect, was probably a good thing.
He was unknowingly heading down a path that could have cost him a chance in the majors. He finished each minor-league season with shoulder fatigue or pain. That discomfort started to show up during spring training 2020.
But his paths crossed with Victor Black, the former Pirate and new minor-league pitching coach, in Bradenton, Fla. and the two embarked on a journey to revamp his throwing motion, doing the first steps from a pitching mound in his backyard. Instead of sweeping arm action, he went straight back, making it as simple and direct an arm path can be.
It worked. Kranick found a way to take care of his shoulder, his stuff improved and he went from being an often-injured Class A pitcher to being on the major-league radar.
“If it was a normal season, I don’t know if I would have been able to make that arm change,” Kranick told me over the phone Saturday night, a few hours after Pirates manager Derek Shelton announced that he would be making his Major League debut the following afternoon. “I probably would have been on the shelf again with some sort of shoulder inflammation or something. Making that change midseason would have been a disaster.
“That time off was kind of a blessing in disguise.”
After a few months of throwing in his backyard and giving progress reports to the Pirates, on June 25, 2020, he got a call from the team. They wanted him to go to the alternate site in Altoona. There, he impressed them enough that they put him on the 40-man roster, even though he had never pitched in the upper levels of the minors.
On June 27, 2021, he made his major league debut at Busch Stadium.
It was historic, retiring all 15 batters he faced Sunday before being pushed out due to a 64 minute rain delay. He still pitched long enough to get credited with the win in the Pirates’ 7-2 victory over the Cardinals.
“I mean, how do you not rally around that?” left fielder Ben Gamel asked.
Five perfect frames. He didn’t know he was flirting with perfection until he was done.
"It kind of dawned on me once I got to the clubhouse,” Kranick said in the postgame Zoom. “I feel like every pitch I threw was the biggest pitch of my life. I was tunneled in. It was a crazy feeling, an unbelievable feeling. I’ll remember this day forever."
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Kranick is the first pitcher since at least 1893 -- the year the pitcher’s mound was moved to 60 feet, six inches -- that a pitcher finished their debut performance with at least five perfect innings.
“It was absolutely incredible to watch,” Gamel said.
It almost didn’t happen. Not because Kranick had just made the jump from Altoona to Class AAA less than a month earlier. But because of the shoulder.
That shoulder means a lot to this organization. Not just because it’s attached to one of the organization’s fastest-rising young arms. But because for all of the organization’s talk about improving player development and establishing a culture of learning, that appendage is those ideas put into action. A case of where a player and coach did far more than what was asked or expected of them, and how it turned that player’s trajectory around and to the majors.
“[He] just really hammered it, hammered it, hammered it,” Indianapolis pitching coach Joel Hanrahan said. “He put himself on the map again.”
Not that it was easy. It was anything but. Those first few weeks, throwing in his backyard off a homemade mound and into a makeshift plyo wall, didn’t go well. It was not a natural change.
“It was a grind, and I felt like it wasn’t gonna work,” Kranick said during our call. “But we stuck with it.”
In those times of doubt, Kranick would pull up videos of Shane Bieber of the Indians and Gerrit Cole of the Yankees. Those were the motions he was trying to emulate. That was what he was trying to do on the mound.
“Being constantly reminded by watching those guys, I think it was something that kept me pushing through,” he said.
When Kranick first started in pro ball, he blended in.
“I think sometimes, because he was an eleventh round pick, they tended to look at him as highly as they would a higher round pick,” his father, John, told me. “I think he’s always had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder because he felt he was better than that.”
He was able to channel that drive and apply it to his new motion.
It’s one thing for it to finally click in the backyard or in Altoona scrimmages. It’s another to do it in the majors:
That’s Tommy Edman, one of the toughest batters in the National League to strike out, he sat down. It was one of three punchouts he had on the day, the only statistic that’s next to his five innings in his official pitching line.
When he digs into the numbers on that pitch, he’ll see that 95 mph fastball broke a foot and a half down with eight inches of run.
That’s something else new that Kranick started this past year. The new regime is much better equipped to present information and analytics. While pitching in the backyard, his brother, Johnny, bought a Rapsodo unit. The two dove into the numbers. Spin rates, efficiencies, direction of pitches. What parts of the zone does each pitch play best in?
Once he got back to a professional setting, he continued to seek out the information with the organization’s improved resources.
“I don’t think it works for all people. Everyone is a little bit different,” Kranick said. “But for me, that quarantine time was the perfect time to get digging into that stuff. I was never really a numbers guy. I never got into that stuff, probably because I never had great numbers, so I ignored it.”
Kranick discovered that his fastball played best in the upper-third of the zone, so that’s where he attacks now:
All of this should be, and is, exciting when focusing on Kranick, the pitcher. Kranick, the symbol for the Pirates’ new player development, is even better, especially considering the sheer volume of arms the organization has acquired of late. All of which will be given the same opportunity to be the best version of themselves.
“I think it’s a really exciting time to be a Pirate,” Kranick said. “There’s a ton of great, great young guys.”
MORE FROM THE GAME
• So...
What happens to Kranick now?
The Pirates will be operating with a six-man rotation through the All-Star break as they go through 20 games in 20 days to close out the first half of the season. There's no word yet, though, of if Kranick will be that sixth pitcher, or if this is just a spot start, like what they did with Miguel Yajure and Cody Ponce earlier this season.
"I don’t know what we’re going to do," Shelton said. "I know we’re going to a six-man rotation. So it’s something that Ben [Cherington] and I will talk about about how we’re going to continue to fill those spots."
• Kranick, ironically, didn't debut as a pitcher though. A three run rally in the top of the first gave him some early wiggle room, and he got to bat before reaching the mound.
"Just getting out there and officially being in the game. Yeah, I think it helped me. It was definitely weird getting an at-bat in the first inning. I don’t think I’ve had that all year."
According to Elias, the only other Pirate pitcher to debut as a batter before they pitched was Paul Maholm on August 30, 2005.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Colin Moran, 1B
Jacob Stallings, C
Gregory Polanco, RF
Kevin Newman, SS
Ben Gamel, LF
Max Kranick, P
And for Mike Shildt's Cardinals:
Dylan Carlson, CF
Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
Nolan Arenado, 3B
Tyler O'Neill, LF
Yadier Molina, C
Tommy Edman, 2B
Lars Nootbaar, RF
Paul DeJong, SS
Johan Oviedo, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates are heading off to Denver to start a three game series with the Rockies. Tyler Anderson (3-7, 4.82) will take the mound at his old stomping grounds, facing lefty Kyle Freeland (0-2, 7.76). First pitch will be at 5:10 p.m. Eastern. DK has got you covered for that series.
IN THE SYSTEM
• It's almost impossible for any Pirate pitcher to try to match what Kranick did Sunday, but wow, Jared Jones gave it a shot. Last season's second-round pick struck out 11 over four frames with only two hits on his ledger.
RHP Prospect, Jared Jones #Pirates
— Pirates Prospect Talk (@TalkPirates) June 27, 2021
Through 4 IP, has only allowed 2H and struck out 11 batters 😳 pic.twitter.com/aRcuaQQfPx
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.